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Influence of distance to forest edges on natural regeneration of abandoned pastures: a case study in the tropical mountain rain forest of Southern Ecuador

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Abstract

In spite of its high diversity the forests in Southern Ecuador are highly endangered by deforestation. One of the main reasons for the loss of forests is the conversion into pastures. Due to their fast degradation, the pastures are abandoned after several years and form an increasing area of unproductive land. The remoteness from existing forest edges is discussed as one reason for the very slow natural reforestation of these areas. In this study we analyzed the regeneration of a secondary forest after approx. 38 years of succession in relation to the distance from the surrounding forest. We revealed that regeneration was rather slow. Especially larger trees with dbh > 10 cm were very scarce. Only Dioicodendron dioicum, Graffenrieda emarginata and Clusia sp. achieved larger diameters. The basal area of the secondary forest is still far beyond the original level in the primary forest. The number of species on plot level and the Shannon index were significantly lower in the secondary forest compared to the primary forest. The total number of species decreased from 47 to 31 with increasing distance from the forest edge and the similarity of species composition to the upper story declined to a level of 56.4 (Sörensen). Alzatea verticillata, Macrocarpea revoluta and Palicourea andaluciana had significantly higher abundances in the succession stages than in the natural forest. The most abundant species in all regeneration plots, G. emarginata and Purdiea nutans, seem to be generalists as they did not show preference either to natural forest or successional stages.

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Notes

  1. Species that only occur at a single position along the gradient from the forest to the gap center, for example only inside the forest but nowhere else

  2. Different numbers indicate different morphospecies

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Acknowledgments

We wish to express our gratitude to the German Research Foundation DFG and the Foundation “Nature and Culture International” for financial assistance. To Alfredo Martinez and Jürgen Homeier our thanks for providing support with botanical identification. We also like to thank the Ministerio de Ambiente del Ecuador for the research permit. Finally, we thank Bernd Stimm for literature and Edith Lubitz for the revision of the manuscript. Last but not the least we thank the team of the Scientific Station San Francisco for their help and the fun we had researching together.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Waldbau, Technische Universität München, Am Hochanger 13, Freising, 85354, Germany

    Sven Günter & Michael Weber

  2. Universidad Central, Quito, Ecuador

    Robert Erreis

  3. Universidad Nacional de Loja, Loja, Ecuador

    Nikolay Aguirre

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  1. Sven Günter
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  2. Michael Weber
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  4. Nikolay Aguirre
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Correspondence to Sven Günter.

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Communicated by Hans Pretzsch.

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Günter, S., Weber, M., Erreis, R. et al. Influence of distance to forest edges on natural regeneration of abandoned pastures: a case study in the tropical mountain rain forest of Southern Ecuador . Eur J Forest Res 126, 67–75 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-006-0156-0

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